ENTRY #5: Reflecting on the Card Strategy

 When I first read about the Card Strategy lesson in Kucer and Rhodes article Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language, I had struggled to really understand how effective this strategy could be. When I brainstorm about topics I want to write about, I typically on a graphic organizer would think of the general topic and then branch off into 2-3 smaller sections that has a relevance to the purpose of the main topic. Brainstorming on what to write was never really a creative/fun process for me, it was more of a "this is what you have to do, so pick a topic and start writing about it". When I got to actually participate in the card strategy in class, I felt like I gained a greater perspective and understanding of how this can be a great tool for our students to use writing as a way to think. When reflecting on the experience, through this strategy it allowed for me to see an abundance of ideas that I could talk about in my writing that had to do with my topic. I think the most important part of this kind of brainstorming is that it's very visual and manipulative. There is a-lot of movement of cards and rearranging of what I thought had the most relevance to my topic. For students this is great because their brains are always moving and sometimes you can't always move the ideas on the page around as fast as your brain is thinking. 

I think another really effective part of this card strategy is having a peer rearrange your subtopics in an order that makes sense to them. When my partner was doing this for me I discovered another perspective of how I could talk about my subtopics, this allowed for me to think about my writing in a new way and grow more ideas. As Kucer and Rhodes state the strategy during this part students are "amazed that their meanings can be structured in a variety of ways...builds flexibility with the writing process and gives the students access to a variety of options" (1986, p.191). I would love to use the card strategy some day in my own classroom to help students in the writing process. I think that the more hands on we can make the writing process for our students the more they're going to enjoy the process and grow their ideas. The lesson card strategy allows for students to be collaborative by sharing their ideas with peers, be hands-on in moving ideas around, not being limited to the amount of subtopics they make cards for, and gain perspective on a variety of ways their ideas can be arranged. This process doesn't box the student in to writing a certain way or order but provides discovers, "Spencer didn't use the cards as a restraint or a rigid outline; as he wrote he discovered and included a major new ideas" (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986, p.191). In the future I will be using this writing to think strategy to engage my students in the writing process.

References

Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986). Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language.                           The Reading Teacher, 40(2), 186-193